Ladies On Two Wheels

I purchased an Olympia textile jacket about 3 years ago. It's a nice vented jacket with a rain/wind liner and pads (back, shoulder, elbow). I don't wear it much, I generally wear my leather jacket and when I do wear it I don't have the pads in. Tomorrow I want to wear it as the temps will be hot. With all the accidents in my area lately, I decided I'd be safer with the pads in the jacket.

The back pad was easy. The elbow pads were a bit harder as they kept sitting everywhere but on my elbow. I found the little adjuster straps on the sleeves and I'm good to go with those now.

The shoulder pads are the problem. I have them in, but when the jacket is on and zipped they are mostly behind by shoulder not on them. I even swapped them (right to left) in case they were side specific. Nope. I was able to get them in the right spot by pulling the mesh liner when the jacket was on. Is that what I'm going to have to do? And, they are so uncomfortable they actually hurt. I can't imagine even a short ride (40 miles-ish) with them in.

Any ideas or suggestions?

This reply is after your ride. Is there any curvature to the shoulder pads you are speaking about? If not, you might try rubber banding them (like what we use to do to the bill of a ball cap to make it curl).

Or get aftermarket shoulder armor. The D30 and similar others are SOFT and get even softer with your body heat. I've replaced the armor in every single jacket I own with those. That said, I wonder if your jacket is too big. The armor will fit in the right spot if the jacket is the right fit. It's worth it though... once you crash, you know how important good armor is. And "pads" don't cut it. Check to make sure they are CE rated, and then maybe even get better ones. The hard plastic CE did not treat me well when I crashed the first time. Then I switched to Held and D30 and it was like floating on clouds... not even a tiny bruise.

I 100% agree with trackaddict - D30 or other soft armor, and be sure the jacket fits.

In one of my jackets, the elbow armor slid down too far in the current pocket. I had to hand stitch the bottom of the pocket so it would sit higher where it should be. Not sure if you could do something like that?

Thanks all. I managed to find a way to get the shoulder pads where they needed to be and was able to wear the jacket just fine. Ended up bailing on that ride as I started to get a migraine and my meds don't mix with riding. Too bad, was a nice group of around 20 ladies. Magpie I think you were on that ride, I didn't realize it or I would have introduced myself from here.

Yes, hi! I was so sorry to hear that you were hit with a migraine. What horrible timing.